Under Kyle Whittingham, Utah became known for its rugged, punishing brand of football.
It was both the Utes' hallmark and recipe for creating a competitive advantage within whichever pass-happy power conference they played, whether it was the Pac-12 from 2011 to 2023 or the Big 12 in the seasons that followed.
“Kyle has evolved over the years,” Utah radio play-by-play announcer Bill Riley told the Free Press back in the spring. “But in his heart of hearts, he likes to play smash-mouth.”
That brawny, aggressive style mirrored a no-frills philosophy based on two main tenets.
“You’ve got to run the football. You’ve got to stop the run,” former Utah color analyst Scott Mitchell explained. “Those are kind of the core things to him.”
Because of those fundamental
beliefs, Whittingham appeared to be an ideological match for Michigan football and the Big Ten at large when he was hired as the Wolverines’ coach last winter. The assumption was that he would thrive in Ann Arbor if he could reproduce the same winning formula he concocted in Salt Lake City.
“Everything that Coach Whittingham represents and everything he brings to the program, it just feels compatible with Michigan,” defensive tackle Trey Pierce said. “Just hard-nosed, tough, disciplined teams who will punch you in the mouth.”
It’s not totally clear yet whether Whittingham’s first Michigan squad entirely fits that description. Only in glimpses have the Wolverines given the impression they do. In a hard-fought 17-10 victory over No. 10 Oklahoma earlier this month, the defense bowed up, holding the Sooners to just 4.7 yards per play and recording eight tackles for loss. The strong performance came a week after Michigan struggled to hold the line against Western Michigan in a last-second 13-12 victory. The plucky MAC school sowed the seeds for a potential upset in the second half, when it seized a two-point lead at the end of a 20-play, 71-yard drive that soaked 13 minutes, 20 seconds off the clock and simultaneously seemed to drain Michigan’s will. During that fraught fourth quarter, the Wolverines found themselves on the brink of catastrophe, in part, because their ground attack couldn’t gain traction. That night, they netted just 106 rushing yards – 16 fewer than Western Michigan did.
“We weren't running very violent,” Whittingham later lamented.
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The blockers also weren’t creating much push. While there was an uptick in rushing production in the win over Oklahoma and a 52-17 rout of UTEP the following week, the improved results weren’t substantial enough to allay concerns about Michigan’s ability to consistently control the line of scrimmage. The Wolverines rank just 97th in the Football Bowl Subdivision in average yards-per-carry.
The team that tops that category?
Iowa, the Wolverines’ next opponent. The Hawkeyes, because of their powerful running game and their stingy, ever-reliable defense, have long been seen as the Big Ten member that best captures the essence of the conference. Much like Whittingham’s teams at Utah, the Iowa squads Kirk Ferentz has led over the past 28 years have won games with discipline and brute force.
The two coaches, U-M defensive coordinator Jay Hill noted, “run similar style programs.”
They both want their teams to outmuscle their opponents and maul them up front.
In that sense, this game will serve as a good litmus test to see if Whittingham’s Wolverines can assert their dominance within a league where vestiges of the “three yards and a cloud of dust” ethos still remain.
As Pierce said, the key to beating Iowa is “winning in the trenches.”
“They’re a trench team. We’re a trench team,” he said. “We’ve got to win the line of scrimmage.”
Accomplishing that objective is not only essential to Michigan’s mission Saturday, but also its championship pursuit this season.
“It’ll be great feedback on where we match up with, I’d say, one of the top Big Ten teams in terms of that physicality,” Wolverines offensive coordinator Jason Beck said. “But we we’ve got a bunch of other teams very similar on the schedule that we’ll be going against.”
The question is whether Whittingham can get Michigan to bully them in the same way his Utah teams once overpowered their Big 12 and Pac-12 brethren. What happens Saturday against Iowa should yield some answers one way or another.
Scene and heard: Whittingham still blunt about U-M's issues
“We're still working on the culture and getting things instilled that way and the expectations.” – Kyle Whittingham said on Monday.
Whittingham has been refreshingly frank when discussing the shortcomings of his team. This quote was delivered in response to a question about the team’s inconsistency through the first three nonconference games. Michigan flirted with disaster up until the final second of its victory over Western Michigan in the opener and looked rather shaky in the first half of its 35-point win over UTEP last Saturday. The Wolverines held just a 17-14 lead at the break after committing a pair of turnovers that set up touchdowns for the Miners. In between those two games, they cobbled together a comprehensive performance in an upset of Oklahoma.
“You want to play at the same level week in and week out regardless of your opponent,” Whittingham said. “I think that our guys were definitely more excited about the challenge of Oklahoma, perhaps, than the other two games.”
That seems to be the case. Whittingham theorized that the uneven effort could be attributed to the fact that Michigan has a relatively young roster. The average age of the players, according to Rotowire, is 20.24, which is tied for 82nd out of 138 teams, about middle of the pack.
Would a more veteran team have been able to maintain their focus and stay even keeled?
Whittingham seems to think so. He told reporters that he has noticed the Wolverines’ “enthusiasm, passion, energy,” ebb and flow. Senior cornerback Smith Snowden didn’t dispute that.
“I think we have some highs and lows,” he said. “We come out good. We might have a lull. So, we just want to stay high.”
With conference play starting, Michigan can’t afford to slip into another funk. The margin for error is too thin. Whittingham understands that and is trying to ensure the Wolverines avoid another letdown.
Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin on X.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Can Michigan gain physical edge in Big Ten? Answer should come vs Iowa
